Psalm 112 – Part ii

Blessed is the man who fears the Lord
Who delights greatly in His commandments
His descendants will be mighty on the earth
The generation of the upright will be blessed
Wealth and riches will be in his house
And his righteousness endures forever v1-3

The bible asserts that the word of God is ‘living and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit’ so we need to put the brakes on if we think that the ‘prosperity gospel’ is either a pernicious distortion of the faith, or that ‘prosperity’ is a faith consequence of the gospel.

Neither does that leave us searching for some middle-ground like a hapless British diplomat succeeding only in fomenting accusations of double standards whilst trying to bridge the gap between those that preach glory and those that espouse suffering. Let us be clear, these verses do indicate financial and small ‘p’ political clout. It’s disingenuous to hit the panic button and spiritualise ‘wealth and riches’ as some form of inner wealth rather than materially in dollars, sterling, or the yen.

So, how do we handle these promises when we worship a man who ended his life virtually naked, hanging on a cross in full public gaze, and owned so very little?

A Christian is a man or a woman who has been crucified with Christ and who has entered an entirely different life, the life of the Son of God, living out His life through you, the Holy Spirit living in your new spirit and on out through your soul (thinking, feelings, will) and body to the world around you. (Galatians 2v20). The old you is gone, and a new creation stands in its place.

As a Christian, then, you hear God speak. To be a Christian is to live in a Spirit-spirit communion. This is, to borrow Watchman Nee’s book title, The Normal Christian Life.

Over 20 years ago, God ‘spoke’ this Psalm into my spirit; it seemed to jump off the page and speak to me. That seems to be how it works. So, to write these posts feels like a kind of homecoming, or a house survey, inspecting the foundations.

At the time, I was financially in a weak position, and my children had yet to enter adult life to build themselves up at work and so on, but these verses leapt from the page and have been living in me ever since, initially as seeds. Seeds are sown underground. Once the soil covers them, there is no visible evidence of their existence; the work of germination goes on unseen, away from public gaze. Twenty years on, I can report…visible growth.

I thank God for giving me a measure of faith, but ‘descendants’ is referring to generations to come. I have four grandchildren at the time of writing, so a further dimension is taking shape. We have to come to terms with the fact that we are of the Abrahamic faith and God spoke to him in terms of generations, it seems that this is God’s ‘normal’, seeing way beyond our horizons and speaking of them to us. We carry His words, believing, but scratching our heads!

We carry His words, believing, but scratching our heads!

Lastly, there is another biblical dimension to the word ‘generation’. The generation of the upright and descendants can, of course, be quite prosaic and mean ‘your kids’, our physical progeny. And we mustn’t dodge that! But it also has a spiritual dimension. The third stage of spiritual growth à la 1 John is fatherhood, in the child, young man, fatherhood progression.

Fatherhood comes in an infinite array of avenues. It is not confined to physical children or the nuclear family. It comes about when whatever wealth inside a man is passed on to whosoever. (Of course, I’m using the term ‘fatherhood’ as a non-gender specific term…though us blokes need to hear this!)

St Paul wrote ‘though you may have ten thousand instructors in Christ, you do not have many fathers…I have begotten you through the gospel, imitate me’.

That’s what father’s say: ‘Do it like this. Imitate me’.

Lastly, none of these promised riches, or descendants, come about automatically simply because we are believers, or because we have trusted in Christ and His work on the cross for us, to forgive us, to take the punishment we deserved and so on. Wonderful though that is, it won’t move us an inch into the fulfilment of these promises.

Fulfilment is dependent on fearing the Lord and delighting in His commandments. The measure to which we humble ourselves by fearing the Lord and obeying his commands is the measure to which He can fulfil these amazingly encouraging promises in our experience.